The Thinkening Blog

As a long-time customer service
representative, I am always alert to the customer service
shortcomings of the companies I deal with. The following is a
particularly bad experience that made me decide not to deal with the
provider of this terrible service ever again.

The Story

In June of 2006, I ordered a computer
monitor on the Circuit City website. There was a $50 mail-in rebate
associated with this monitor on the website.

When the monitor arrived, I looked over
the paperwork that came with it, and noticed that the $50 rebate
offered by HP did not apply to the monitor I purchased. It was clear
that someone at Circuit City had incorrectly associated the HP rebate
to the monitor I bought.

Since
Circuit City made the mistake, I called their customer service line to get the error resolved. The first hour
and a half was spent talking to Circuit City people who variously denied that there was an error, insisted that HP would honor the rebate
anyway, blamed me for not reading the rebate material in advance, and
simply stonewalling, saying that yes there was an error but no
nothing could be done.

I decided to start recording the call
after about 90 minutes of this nonsense. There was still 40 minutes left before I got any
results. I managed to edit out the hold times and lengthy pauses to
get the recording down below 10 minutes.

This was such a clear example of (1) a
corporation refusing to admit wrongdoing, (2) trying to make the little guy pay
for its mistake, and (3) that 'We don't really care about our customers'
attitude that we all get from time to time from these mega-corporations, that I
decided to make a video of this and send it public. This is that
video. (There's a slideshow as the recording plays for something to look at. The slideshow is composed of photos from different parts of the Pike's Peak region in Colorado.)

Update

Update: I did receive the gift card a
week later. At the local store, I bought a few items with it, and
have never set foot in a Circuit City since.